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Stanley Kubrick and Hieronymus Bosch: in the Garden of Earthly Delights

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Stanley Kubrick and Hieronymus Bosch: in the Garden of Earthly Delights Essais Revue interdisciplinaire d’Humanités Hors-série 4 | 2018 Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick and Hieronymus Bosch: In The Garden of Earthly Delights Dijana Metlić Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/essais/633 DOI: 10.4000/essais.633 ISSN: 2276-0970 Publisher École doctorale Montaigne Humanités Printed version Date of publication: 1 July 2018 Number of pages: 105-123 ISBN: 979-10-97024-04-8 ISSN: 2417-4211 Electronic reference Dijana Metlić, « Stanley Kubrick and Hieronymus Bosch: In The Garden of Earthly Delights », Essais [Online], Hors-série 4 | 2018, Online since 01 December 2019, connection on 16 December 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/essais/633 ; DOI : 10.4000/essais.633 Essais Stanley Kubrick and Hieronymus Bosch: In The Garden of Earthly Delights Dijana Metlić In 1999 Stanley Kubrick completed his last film, Eyes Wide Shut, based on the 1926 book Traumnovelle by Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler. Set in early 20th century Vienna, Schnitzler’s story analyses a marital crisis and infi- delity, psychological pressures caused by dreams and phantasms, and offers potential solutions for overcoming such unpleasant situations. Kubrick made a geographical and temporal shift to late-twentieth-century New York, other- wise remaining faithful to the original novella. He focuses on the relationship between prosperous doctor Bill Harford and his charming wife Alice, who suddenly shatters their family harmony by confessing her past temptation to commit adultery. By revealing her hidden sexual desires that are obviously not properly fulfilled in the marital bed, she causes a psychological crack in her husband, who will have to suffer a painful process of self-discovery to recover his reputation of a doctor, father and family man. Eyes Wide Shut can be understood as essentially an intimate film about the unbearable lightness of (domestic) being. It questions sexual confidence on which family life depends, and tries to highlight the importance of conjugal trust that is easily shaken by the world’s incitements. Signified as a millennial work, released in the final year of the previous century, Eyes Wide Shut seems to summarise Kubrick’s thoughts on crucial existential issues like fidelity, desire, jealousy, sex, and death. It deals with romance and passion, rethinking the old presumption that women want love, and men want sex.1 It forces the spectator to consider the reasons for the (un)expected weakening of erotic compulsion in marriage and the fading of everlasting love at first sight. It looks at sex as an important marital driving force whose unifying powers must not be forgotten and underrated. As Celestino Deleyto pointed out, Bill’s sexual odyssey taught him a lesson that making love in marriage can be about 1 Further on romantic and passionate love, consult: Anthony Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy, Stanford University Press, 1992, p. 37-87. 106 Dijana Metlić enjoying more freedom in the flesh of his own wife Alice. “The measure of their reconciliation will depend on their ability to turn it [sex] into the joyous, healthy, and pleasurable affair.”2 Kubrick had been preoccupied with Traumnovelle since at least 1968.3 In the first place, he admired the Viennese author, expressing esteem for his work in a 1960 interview: “It’s difficult to find any writer who understood the human soul more truly and who had a more profound insight into the way people think, act and really are”4. Secondly, Kubrick’s affinity for the stylistic beauty of the filmLa Ronde (1950), based on a Schnitzler novel and directed by Max Ophüls, was also well acknowledged. This Austrian film maker, according to Kubrick, never “received the critical appreciation he deserved”5. Finally, Kubrick’s early interest in Sigmund Freud6 was confirmed by his desire to direct “a contemporary story that really gave a feeling of the times, psychologically, sexually”7. In 1980 Kubrick sent Schnitzler’s novel to screenwriter Michael Herr who said that “it intrudes on the concealed roots of Western erotic life like a laser, suggesting discreetly, from behind its dream cover, things that are seldom even privately acknowledged, and never spoken of in daylight”8. It is not surprising that the director waited for almost three decades to develop this project, although Warner Brothers announced its production just after the premiere of A Clockwork Orange (1971).9 Therefore, Eyes Wide Shut unintentionally became Kubrick’s final and most personal work, the one that underscores the importance of harmonious marriage for the regularity and stability of daily existence. As Michel Ciment remarked, this film “is focused on the most intimate aspects of our individuality, the problems of the couple, the crisis of identity”10. 2 Celestino Deleyto, “1999, A Closet Odyssey: Sexual Discourses in Eyes Wide Shut”, Atlantis, 28.1, June 2006, p. 29-43. 3 Kubrick’s fascination with Schnitzler was analysed in many articles. Consult: Lucy Scholes and Richard Martin, “Archived Desires: Eyes Wide Shut” in Tatjana Ljujić, Peter Krämer and Richard Daniels (eds), Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives, London, Black Dog Publishing, 2015, p. 344-356; Ernesto R. Acevedo-Munoz, “Don’t look now: Kubrick, Schnitzler and ‘The unbearable agony of desire’”,Literature Interpretation Theory, v. 13, April 2002, p. 117-137; James Naremore, On Kubrick, London, British Film Institute, 2014, p. 223; Peter Loewenberg, “Freud, Schnitzler and Eyes Wide Shut” in Geoffrey Cocks (eds.),Depth of Field: Stanley Kubrick, Film, and the Uses of History, Wisconsin, The University of Wisconsin Press, 2006, p. 255-279; Michel Ciment, op. cit., p. 259. 4 Castle (ed.), The Stanley Kubrick Archives, Köln, Taschen, 2008, p. 482. 5 Alexander Walker, Stanley Kubrick, Director: A Visual Analysis, New York, London, W. W. Norton and Company, 2000, p. 14. 6 See: Naremore, op. cit., p. 228-231; Michel Ciment, Kubrick: The Definitive Edition, New York, Faber and Faber, 2003, p. 259-260. 7 Alison Castle (ed.), op. cit., p. 482. 8 Michael Herr, Kubrick, New York, Grove Press, 2000, p. 8. 9 See announcement entitled Kubrick drama from Kine Weekly, issue dated 8 May 1971, reprinted in: Alison Castle (ed.), op. cit., p. 482. 10 Ciment, op. cit., p. 259. Stanley Kubrick and Hieronymus Bosch: In The Garden of Earthly Delights 107 Talking with Ciment, Kubrick explained that Rhapsody: A Dream Novel is a difficult book that “explores the sexual ambivalence of a happy marriage, and it tries to equate the importance of sexual dreams and might-have-beens with reality”11. The appeal of this story lies in the fact that Kubrick constantly blurred the boundaries between the real and the imaginary, basically relying on the impressions induced by Schnitzler: “Fridolin opened his eyes as wide as possible, passed his hand over his forehead and cheeks and felt his pulse. It scarcely beat faster. Everything was right. He was completely awake”12. These uncertainties contribute to the mysterious atmosphere in the film, making it one of the most incomprehensible and ambiguous works in Kubrick’s oeuvre. His sudden death caused silence and left us wondering about the film’s hidden meanings. By choosing universal themes such as love and jealousy, commit- ment and trust, sexual intimacy and sexual immorality, monogamy and lust, Kubrick forced us to seek after the true motivation of his final personal and emotional unmasking. As Ciment pointed out, “Eyes Wide Shut breaks with the past. It no longer evokes a love that remains unrequited but explores the abyss of the psyche in a ‘normal’ adult couple, where, as in all Kubrick’s films, Eros and Thanatos meet”13. In his book on Kubrick, Thomas Allen Nelson indicated that the disparate narrative elements of Eyes Wide Shut are composed into a three-part unity that metaphorically imitates the musical form of a sonata.14 In this paper I will try to establish a link between the film and a different kind of tripartite structure –Hieronymus Bosch’s15 large triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, 11 Kubrick in Ciment, p. 156. 12 Arthur Schnitzler, A Dream Story, Los Angeles, Green Integer, 2003, p. 68. 13 Ciment, op. cit., p. 259. 14 Thomas Allen Nelson, Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist’s Maze, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2000, p. 268. 15 Hieronymus Bosch lived and worked from around 1450 till 1516 in ’s-Hertogenbosch, one of the four largest cities of the duchy of Brabant, near the present-day Belgian border. Familiarly known as Jeroen or Joen, he was born as the fourth of five children in the marriage between Antonius van Aken and Aleid van der Mynnen. There is a relatively small number of records about Bosch’s life. He left no letters or diaries, and there are only few references to him in the account books of the Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady. After he married Aleid van der Mervenne (probably in 1481), the daughter of a wealthy merchant, his social status improved and he was admitted to the elite and the clerical inner circle of “sworn brothers” of the Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady. Members of this fraternity were well educated priests, theologians, lawyers, and doctors, and by 1500 the membership was extended to few architects and painters. Among them was Master Bosch. He was a devout Catholic, led a peaceful, religious life, and left no children. Occasionally he was commissioned by the Brotherhood to produce altarpieces and panels for their chapels. Interest in Bosch’s work revived in the late 19th and increased throughout the 20th century, and many differ- ent interpretations of his oeuvre appeared. He was called fantastic and capricious (Vasari); painter of frightful and horrid dreams (Lomazzo); creator of strange appearances, spooks and 108 Dijana Metlić made around 1503. My interpretation of Eyes Wide Shut is founded on the three inner scenes of Bosch’s painting: Paradise and the Creation of Eve (left wing), Humankind before the Flood (central panel) and Hell (right wing).
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